Teachers’ and students’ perceptions on the acquisition of competences through Project-Based Learning (PBL) in bilingual education

Project Based Learning (PBL) has recently acquired a paramount role in education with a new respectability and a burgeoning number of proponents. Its envisaging as an instructional approach that embraces the basic concepts of research, reflection, production, complexity and rigor when dealing with relevant issues for students and society has led to PBL being heralded as a transformational educative strategy and a catalyst of competences. However, there is scanty research on students and teachers’ perceptions of Project-Based instruction and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) run in parallel. This article aims to report the findings of a research study conducted in three primary and secondary schools in Seville (Spain) to investigate the level of competence development achieved by students when working through a project in a bilingual learning context. The study has been conducted in a hybrid way with quantitative and qualitative method following an exploratory survey-type methodology for which two ad hoc questionnaires have been designed, addressed and adapted to the two sample units selected for our study: teachers and students. The results of this study suggest that project work activates a range of skills that can be transferred to real-life situations, enabling students to become socially and academically competent, being likewise a promising activity to socialize and promote language learning. El Aprendizaje Basado en Proyectos (ABP) ha adquirido recientemente un papel primordial en la educación con una nueva respetabilidad y un creciente número de defensores. Su concepción como un enfoque pedagógico que abarca los conceptos básicos de investigación, reflexión, producción, complejidad y rigor a la hora de abordar cuestiones relevantes para los estudiantes y la sociedad ha llevado a considerar al ABP como una estrategia educativa transformadora y un catalizador de competencias. Sin embargo, son escasas las investigaciones sobre las percepciones de estudiantes y profesores acerca del ABP y el Aprendizaje Integrado de Contenidos y Lenguas Extranjeras (AICLE) implementados en paralelo. Este artículo pretende dar a conocer los resultados de un estudio de investigación llevado a cabo en tres centros de primaria y secundaria de Sevilla (España) para investigar el nivel de desarrollo competencial alcanzado por los alumnos cuando trabajan por proyectos en un contexto de aprendizaje bilingüe. El estudio se ha realizado de forma híbrida con método c